Every Thursday is bread making day at Nursery. Making bread is fun and easy and this is a really simple recipe. 

You can halve or double the quantities depending on how hungry you are feeling and play around with different flour if you fancy it. I often use vegetable oil or sunflower oil instead of olive oil.

Ingredients

500g bread flour (I use white at nursery but at home I mix it up)

7g (one sachet) of fast action yeast

1 and a half tsp caster sugar

2 tsp salt

300ml Luke warm water

3 tablespoons of olive oil

plus extra flour for dusting

Method

1. Combine the flour, yeast, salt and caster sugar in a large bowl. I mix up the ingredients with a fork, and pretend I'm an electric mixer! 

2. Once combined make a well in the centre of the flour in preparation for the wet ingredients...

3. Measure 300ml of warm water and add 3 tablespoons of oil

4. Pour the water and oil into the well of flour and gradually mix the flour in with the fork until it starts to come together.

5. Make your hands nice and floury and get them in the bowl and combine the dough together to make a nice ball. You'll start to get used to how it should feel when it is ready to bring it out to knead it - don't worry if its a bit sticky - the more flour you add at this stage the denser and heavier your loaf will become, and you want a nice light loaf. The bowl will be nice and clean as you will have made your ball of dough. 

6. Transfer the dough to a floured work top and start to knead. Don't add too much flour - keep kneading backwards and forwards and having fun, until it feels lovely and smooth and elastic (about ten minutes for an adult but I'd say its not a timed activity if you are small and enjoying it!)

7. Place your dough back in the mixing bowl and cover it with a damp tea towel or cling film somewhere warm for about an hour - the dough will double in size. If you make your dough in the evening you can even leave it in the fridge over night.

8. After your hour has finished (or you get the bowl out of the fridge in the morning) knock back the dough. That means take it out of the bowl - it will be lovely and squishy and full of gas - and give it a good knead for about ten minutes. Divide it up into 8 balls and pop it on a greased baking sheet for another hour.

Preheat your oven to 220c/fan. 

9. Now cook in the oven for 10-15 minutes. Once out of the oven transfer to a cooling rack and tap the bottom of the rolls to make sure they sound hollow (a test of cooked bread). Cover with a clean tea towel and cool... but definitely best eaten warm!